Angie Away

Monday, January 22, 2007

Sunday night after church, all the gals went to dinner at Boston Market for some tasty home cooking and quality time with our urban family. We had to sit in the dingy, empty basement of the restaurant, because there was no seating up top. Like famine survivors, we greedily noshed on plates loaded with carbs: mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread, sweet potatoes and delish macaroni and cheese. As we were catching up on the weekend, one of the personality-challenged cashiers came down to clean tables and presumably not to interact kindly with us customers. From a corner of the room, she asked us if the abandoned black duffel bag on the table was ours. Panic. We had been so engrossed with wolfing down plates o’ carbs that none of us noticed the conspicuous bag on the table. The cashier tried to lift the bag, and with a horrified look said, “That’s heavy. I’m getting out of here.” Then she ran up the stairs. As a point of information, I must admit that at no time did any of us stop shoveling macaroni and cheese into our mouths, we just did it faster and with scared looks on our faces. There would be no evacuation prior to finishing the carbs. Once we had devoured enough food to feed all the hungry Malawians, we all but ran out of the place, finally expressing a genuine concern about the abandoned, heavy black bag. At press time, there was no report of Boston Market exploding, so I’m glad we didn’t rush out and leave our cheesy and delightful plates o’ carbs. But the situation does point out the need for some emergency preparedness training when in the company of mashed potatoes and gravy.